How Do I HowDoI?

HowDoI is a new form of documentation aimed primarily at explaining new technologies in GNOME from a standpoint of "I'm an app author and I already know a thing or two. How do I (insert topic here)?"

It was dreamed up at the OpenHelp 2013 Hackfest in Cincinnati as a way to get developers involved in writing tutorial-style documentation for their own creations.

Anyone is welcome (and encouraged!) to write new HowDoI pages. In particular, people creating new awesome technologies should really be writing HowDoI pages for them.

When writing new pages, try to follow these main guidelines:

The page should be written for an audience that already has familiarity with existing GNOME technologies but knows almost nothing about your new technology, aside from hearing that there is this new cool thing that they should be using.

The page should primarily aim to be an answer to "I’m new to this. Give me the overview of how it works.". This is not reference documentation.

There should be enough information that even people familiar with the technology should walk away feeling like they've learnt something new.

There should an abundance of code samples and {{{sourcecode}}} sections amenable to being copied and adapted.

Pages should generally be written on topics impacting developers of GNOME applications (both in the sense of applications included in GNOME and applications written for use with GNOME). If a technology has more general uses outside of those of a normal GNOME application, try to focus on the normal case as it will impact most developers.